Review 1712: Owner, The Old Fig Trees

When

September 2005, two weeks

Review

I wanted to give a report on the gite my family and I stayed at in South West France. My daughter was celebrating her 13th Bíday so we decided to go off to France. Believe it or not I found this place through chatting on the internet. I met a family that has a gite in South west France near Toulouse. Mind you I have never been to France nor speak the language.

I contacted the owner and proceed to rent the gite for two weeks. I never have met the owner before or really new much about them. They said they would meet us at the Toulouse airport. They wanted to insure we did not get lost being this was the first trip for my family to visit France. We headed out from LA, California. The flight was long but we all survived. We met the family who we would be renting the gite right on schedule. We drove for about 30 minutes from Toulouse to a little town called Calmont and the gite was actually an old farm in Pyret.

Now I say old but it has been fully restored, but has kept the character of old beam ceilings that actually look like they just cut down trees and used them for beams. It was very interesting to see how things were built 300 years ago.

The gite was outstanding. Iím not sure I could ask for much more. They had a very large pool, fruit trees, and great patio area. Now my new found friends that I now call family made arrangements for my daughters 13th Bíday in one of the local restaurants. We could not believe all this. My daughter was really taken by all this. This vacation was defiantly the number 1 of all vacations we have ever taken.

The owner ended up cooking for us and taking us all over South France. We did not speak French so she help out a lot. She even has a friend who is a retired gourmet cook who ended up also cooking a dinner for us. One night we decide to cook them family a dinner from America. Good old meat loaf.

We bathed in roman hot tubs; saw many medival cities, caves, castles. She also brought us in the town markets and we met so many friendly French people. I have to say we were a little worried about the relationship between the US and France, but you would never known it by the people we met. Every one was extremely friendly and met us with kisses on the cheek.

I do recommend this gite. My daughter is now taking French and hopes to go study in France some day. We do plan to go back many times.

This review is the opinion of a Slow Travel member and not of slowtrav.com.